Sunday, July 28, 2013

We are in the final stages of an extended family reunion/visit by children and grandchildren. For 5 days over the 4th of July all of our 4 children, 3 children-in-law, and 7 grandchildren visited. Anne and Rex came all the way from Houston with Leah, Alex, Brenna, Eli and Zach. Chris and Stacey came from Pagosa Springs, CO. Aaron lives here and attended each day's activities. And Carrie & Matt came from Bellevue with Danny and Kaylee. It was glorious but tiring. We had some fantastic adventures - a great multi-person summer birthday party, a fantastic fireworks show, dinner out for the adults, an early morning climb of Badger Mountain by several family members, a Memory Dinner to celebrate our 40th anniversary, a women's afternoon out to shop and get pedicures, a men's afternoon out to go boating on the Columbia River, lots and lots of good food, and many more excellent activities. It was wonderful to see all of the family shortly before we will leave on our mission. The reunion activities have continued with an ongoing visit by our oldest daughter Anne and her 5 children. We have had additional excellent activities including a baptism for granddaughter Brenna, multiple swimming trips, a long weekend in Bellevue at Carrie and Matt's, several good movies, and multiple trips to the park. As everyone departs we will be faced with some serious work to get ready for our mission. We will be departing for the Missionary Training Center in just 4 weeks. We are quite excited, but also still a bit nervous about the unknown. But we have a strong and deep seated faith that all will go well.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

This is our first blog entry. The purpose of this new blog is to share our mission experience with family and friends. We will be reporting to the Mission Training Center in Provo, Utah on September 2, 2013 for two weeks of training. After that we will be driving to Virginia where we will serve in the Virginia Richmond Mission. We have been called as Military Relations Specialists and we will be working with marines form the Quantico Marine Base. We will live in Woodbridge, Virginia, which is near the Quantico Base. We are very excited about our mission, but a little nervous about all the changes and what to expect. Currently we are very busy preparing not only for the mission, but a large family reunion over the 4th of July. We are new at blogging, so give us some time to figure things out. Hopefully we will be practiced and smooth by the time we get to the mission field.